61–67 of 67 posts
Like most living systems, Jellyfishes are self organizing systems. But the difference is that a jellyfish is quite minimalistic in structure and their neural system is simple too. And most certainly, it lacks emotions of any kind. That is what amazes me about jellyfishes: a very, very simple system genetically programmed to for reproduction lacking any "purpose". And, now they say it can even go back to its proto sta…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In humans, DNA Polymerase (the thing that replicates DNA) makes about 1 in 10,000 base pairing errors. After other enzymes "proof read"- the mistake count is 1 in 1 billion. Keep in mind, that there is a lot of "junk DNA." junk DNA is DNA that does nothing, but a lot of mistakes are made in the junk DNA and the introns (parts of the junk DNA that do nothing) are cut out and we only keep in exons. Now I have another v…
Suppose the one in a billion number is right. But that thing has to have at least several billion cells. So each transformation will ensure that there are several cells that go wrong. I mean people live a limited time and do not have to have their cells do these complex transformations, yet a large part of us still manage to get cancer before we die. Also, I do not believe that stuff about mutations being just as lik…
You don't have to believe the "stuff" about mutations being just as likely to be good because it is true. Furthermore, that's not how cancer works.
Cancer might happen when a beam of light hits the nucleus and blasts the DNA out of the nucleus. (This is normally at x-ray or gamma-ray level, and the common skin cancer has to do with our repair cycle for skin when UV light hits it, and our not repairing fast enough.) Other cancers happen other ways, and I don't want to pretend I know everything either, but I do know- the idea of the cells being degraded enough over time to just kill the animal is a little far fetched. Yeah, could happen, but the degrading will take a hell of a long time based on what I know.
Also on a side note: How many base pairs do you think there are? That 1 in 1 billion may look bigger if I tell you that there are 30,000 base pairs in humans, most of which is junk DNA, and then there are also probably quite a few less in a sea jelly. 1 in 1 billion is a pretty big number now isn't it?
This form of immortality displeases me. I'd rather not turn back into a fetus for the sake of immortality.
What about enthropy? I would expect that after going between polyp and adult many times the DNA of some cells may get damaged, and the cells may not convert correctly to their new cell types, and eventually the organism will become more and more wrong until it dies.
In humans, DNA Polymerase (the thing that replicates DNA) makes about 1 in 10,000 base pairing errors. After other enzymes "proof read"- the mistake count is 1 in 1 billion. Keep in mind, that there is a lot of "junk DNA." junk DNA is DNA that does nothing, but a lot of mistakes are made in the junk DNA and the introns (parts of the junk DNA that do nothing) are cut out and we only keep in exons. Now I have another v…
This is the same sort of reasoning as "either I win the lottery or I don't, so there's a 50% chance". More mutations are neutral, than harmful, than beneficial.
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If it's not one thing it's another.
They've reached true immortality when they can go in one end of an animal and come out the other still alive.